The Ploughman's Lunch
| The Ploughman's Lunch | |
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First edition cover
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| Directed by | Richard Eyre |
| Produced by |
Simon Relph Ann Scott |
| Written by | Ian McEwan |
| Starring |
Jonathan Pryce Tim Curry Charlie Dore Rosemary Harris Frank Finlay |
| Music by | Dominic Muldowney |
| Cinematography | Clive Tickner |
| Edited by | David Martin |
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Production
company |
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| Distributed by | The Samuel Goldwyn Company |
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Release date
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Running time
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107 minutes |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
The Ploughman's Lunch is a 1983 film written by Ian McEwan and directed by Richard Eyre which features Jonathan Pryce, Tim Curry and Rosemary Harris.
The film looks at the media world in Margaret Thatcher's Britain during the time of the Falklands War. It was a part of Channel 4's "Film on Four" strand, enjoying a successful and critically lauded theatrical release prior to its television screenings.
James Penfield (Pryce) is an ambitious London-based BBC radio reporter, from humble origins but Oxford-educated. He is commissioned to write a book on the Suez Crisis and undertakes this commission, claiming not to be a socialist, at the same time as the 1982 Falklands War is starting to dominate the British media.
This is a backdrop to his attraction towards Susan Barrington (Charlie Dore), an upper class, rather snooty TV journalist, to whom he is introduced through his close Oxford friend and fellow TV journalist, Jeremy Hancock (Curry). Although he is persistent, he cannot get further than a late night kiss from her and so Jeremy suggests that he contact her mother, a prominent left-wing historian Ann Barrington (Harris) living in Norfolk, and married to advertising film director Matthew Fox (Frank Finlay). It transpires that Ann wrote an article on the Suez Crisis on its tenth anniversary and James wants to seduce the daughter by befriending the mother.
Claiming to be a socialist, James soon finds himself spending more time with the mother than her daughter; they have several long discussions and also take long walks on the Norfolk Broads. Meanwhile, his mother is dying, and having earlier said to Susan that his parents are dead, he is forced to identify her only as a relative when his father contacts him while he is with Ann. Returning to London, he is forced to ask for help from members of a women's peace camp for a jack after suffering a puncture. Initially mistaken for another BBC man, he shows some feigned sympathy towards the group protesting against the use of force outside a Norfolk airbase. Visiting Norfolk again a week later with an uninterested Susan, James walks alone with Ann Barrington who kisses him and later enters his bedroom and has sex with him.
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